My name is Xu Jixin.
It was the owner of the Dongxing-Nanxing route, a vital transportation artery during the War of Resistance against Japan.
To be honest, I'm ashamed to say that I was originally a doctor, but I never did anything to save lives; instead, I spent my whole life as a businessman.
However, I deal with people and ghosts in all sorts of ways, and everyone calls me the most promising person in the Xu family.
Actually, that's not the case.
The Xu family's children are all very successful.
It's just that no one can show their face in public.
From 1921 to 1949, my brothers and sisters all joined our Party, and they all did dangerous things.
Let me start with my younger sister. She's the only one who isn't my parents' biological child, nor is she born to any other concubine.
She was adopted and came to my house to protect my younger sister, Xu Minghua, from disaster.
She was brought to us right after she was born, so she shouldn't have any memories of it, but she just isn't close to us.
I don't know which gossipy woman was whispering in her ear, but she's always been a very well-behaved child.
Compared to Xu Minghua's arrogance and domineering nature, I prefer her gentleness. The little boy's affection for her is nothing more than pulling her pigtails or scaring her with bugs.
As I grew up, I realized that this wasn't affection, it was bullying, but before I could apologize to her, she left home.
When I went away to study and returned home, I was told that she had been sent to a nearby temple to pray for Xu Minghua.
I went to Huian Temple, but I couldn't get into the nunnery. I thought I would never see her again.
Unexpectedly, a few years later, she returned, transformed into a beautiful girl covered in thorns.
I am relieved that she is no longer the weak person who lets others bully her.
However, I later discovered that she seemed to have become a bit too assertive. As an unmarried young woman, she dared to associate with people like Cheng Muyun and Chen Hede, and even dared to participate in protests.
Later, I realized that we had all underestimated her.
She's a complete know-it-all; she can talk about astronomy and geography, and she can even venture into the heavens and the earth.
If she weren't a woman, I'm afraid the owner of this eastbound-southbound route would be her, not me.
A woman as eagle-like as her is definitely capable of achieving great things.
She was the first person in our family to join the Communist Party, and also the one who ultimately succeeded the most.
I admire her from the bottom of my heart. Despite the disastrous start, she managed to carve out such a path on her own.
Secondly, I want to talk about my younger brother, Xu Jiyi.
He was a stubborn scholar.
How stubborn are they?
He demanded that my father give some of his family's grain to the children who were going to school. Although my father was very wealthy, he had saved all of this money and was extremely stingy, so he resolutely refused.
So he returned all the land deeds from his hometown in Dongzhou, and even went to the county town to sign and seal them, causing my father to bleed a lot of money.
Then, he didn't go home for ten years. Maybe he was angry that my father watched people starve to death, or maybe he didn't dare to, after all, it was the family business.
During those ten years, which included eight years of the War of Resistance against Japan, my mother always complained to my father, asking him to find her youngest son.
Thanks to the dense information network along the eastern northern and southern routes, we finally received news of him: he was on the front lines in Dongzhou and refused to return no matter what.
By some stroke of luck, he wasn't killed by the Japanese and returned with a big red flower on his back.
Later, although he worked in Xinhai City, he rarely went home.
He and his teacher were so busy collecting historical fragments and organizing books that they didn't have time for blind dates.
My mother was frantic, but there was nothing she could do. Finally, she went to his superior, who was very concerned about the single status of unmarried men and women. So, he introduced him to a woman who was also passionate about history.
He wasn't picky about words, though; he nodded.
After marriage, the two studied history and literature together, and their life was not bad.
However, it is worth mentioning that thanks to his great act of distributing all the land in Dongzhou to the farmers back then, my father, despite his advanced age, escaped a disaster.
Thirdly, I want to talk about my eldest brother.
He was the founder of the Eastbound Northbound Route, but he was a low-key and humble person.
It may be because he is the eldest in the family and was taught from a young age to be steady and mature. He never tries to stand out.
He had a son a long time ago, and later had two daughters.
For the sake of his three children and his sister-in-law who had bound feet, he remained an underground member of the Communist Party, secretly passing on information and hiding himself so well that neither the Japanese nor Chiang Kai-shek's men could find him.
He often says that he practices the Doctrine of the Mean, but I think he is actually a true hermit living in the city.
Finally, I want to talk about my younger sister, Xu Minghua.
She was the apple of my family's eye, a pampered young lady born with a silver spoon in her mouth, who never had to lift a finger.
But fate is cruel; she, who was showered with love and affection, was the first to leave this world.
She died in 1947 in Nanjing.
Ironically, she didn't die from the invaders' guns, but from being surrounded and intercepted by her own people.
When she first got together with Xiao Wuxin, my parents disapproved because at that time, the name Xiao Wuxin meant a capital offense.
However, she had just returned from studying abroad and was exceptionally receptive to new ideas. She left with a single sentence and resolutely departed.
She said, "Since I am to be a son or daughter of China, I cannot be my parents' daughter."
Not long after she left, Xu Jiyi left too. The two children who had gone abroad left one after another, making my parents extremely regretful for sending them abroad.
Unlike Xu Jiyi, who disappeared without a trace, Xu Minghua would send a letter home every two weeks to let his parents know he was safe, and they eventually gave in.
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